


serac

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, Extra Treat, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: A lump formed in Wedge’s throat and he couldn’t answer one way or the other. This was it. Either Rey found him or she didn’t. Either he was coming back or not.Luke.After all these years, Wedge wasn’t sure he was ready.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PunsBulletsAndPointyThings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunsBulletsAndPointyThings/gifts).



Of the important events in Wedge’s life, Luke leaving probably rated second on the list—situated well behind being recruited into the Rebellion to begin with, but ahead of climbing into a cockpit for the first time when he was a kid and discovered flight and freedom and a love for starships that remained with him to this day, probably would stay with him until he finally keeled over and died.

It might’ve surprised Luke to know that; it certainly surprised Wedge when he figured it out, practically tearing his hair out as he tried to reason through just what was going on in Luke’s mind, why he hadn’t _told_ Wedge, just where the kriff he’d disappeared to. Nothing, Wedge thought, was more important than the Rebellion, than flying, than the relationship he and Luke had built over the years.

Two of those things were still important, even if one of them had been rebranded as the Resistance and mostly consisted of painfully young individuals who saw people like Wedge as figures of inspiration rather than active participants. The last, Wedge wasn’t so sure about anymore.

So, a shift. An uncomfortable shift. A hated shift. A shift Wedge would never have thought could happen because Luke was a stalwart presence in his life, a constant, even thought he was often away, often out of comm range, often busy training a new generation of Jedi. He wasn’t given to impulsive decisions like this.

He _hadn’t_ been given to impulsive decisions, that was to say.

Later, he’ll say this about it: Luke may have been impulsive, but he was committed. So at least some things never changed.

Why that mattered, Wedge couldn’t say. Probably wouldn’t have wanted to think about it even if he’d known.

*

“You ever miss the old days?” Leia asked, smiling bitterly down at the holotable, her hands wrapped around its edge of its frame. The red, creeping wave of First Order sightings pushed closer and closer to Republic space, to the Resistance base, to sympathetic planets stuck in the middle, but yet beholden to neither the Resistance nor the First Order. Lucky, Wedge called those places, and out of touch.

“Depends which old days you’re talking about,” Wedge answered, tapping on one of the planets floating near the border between safety and First Order conquest. His leg twinged; it always twinged these days. It used to be it only hurt when he’d walked too much or when it was going to rain or if he twisted wrong. For all the medical technology available to them in this galaxy, you couldn’t cure everything entirely, even if it was just ancient history and a broken bone. Age had to catch up to everyone he supposed, even stubborn old men from Corellia. “I could’ve lived without the playing spy for the New Republic portion of my career.”

Leia snorted and shook her head. “You were pretty bad at it.”

Wedge refused to dignify that with an answer, even though it was true. “The orange flight suits were nice,” he said.

“They were terrible.”

“I thought I looked dashing in them.” He swiped at the holotable, pushing the planet back into its proper place. They didn’t have the resources to help the people there. And the people there didn’t have the resources to make it worthwhile to pursue a conflict. The calculus of it turned his stomach, but they’d never win if someone didn’t make the hard calls.

“You have terrible taste.” And the way she said it suggested a whole lot more was behind it than just his nostalgia for awful uniforms.

“Can’t deny that,” Wedge said, adopting a chipper, obnoxious tone. More seriously, and quieter, “I do miss it.”

Leia sighed and nodded, not at all surprised by his admission. And it wasn’t because she had a whole bag of Jedi tricks at her disposal. No, she probably wouldn’t have been surprised even if she’d had not even a whiff of Force sensitivity about her. “It was easier back then, wasn’t it?”

“Didn’t seem like it at the time.” _But at least back then we were all together_.

Leia grinned. “It never does, does it? But we’ll—”

“General?” Connix called, her clear, bright voice carrying across the command center. “Priority transmission from unknown planet. Resistance encryption detected.”

Leia gestured for Wedge to follow her and called back, “Any chance it’s a trap?”

“I don’t believe so, ma’am.” Connix handed her a flimsy, nonsense scrawled across it. Leaning forward, she lowered her voice, “It’s using the code you gave to Rey and Chewbacca.”

Which meant there was almost no chance anyone _but_ one of them had sent it.

“Let it through,” Leia said, “but quarantine it to one of the dummy comm receivers.” She stepped away, striding as quickly as possible toward the comm array in question. Wedge, of course, followed her. “Want to place any last minute bets?”

A lump formed in Wedge’s throat and he couldn’t answer one way or the other. This was it. Either Rey found him or she didn’t. Either he was coming back or not.

Luke.

After all these years, Wedge wasn’t sure he was ready.

But he wasn’t sure he was ready to concede defeat either.

*

The _Millennium Falcon_ punched through the clouds, the dull gray of its hull somehow catching the light anyway and reflecting it back, a flash like the waving of a hand in greeting.

 _You’re losing it,_ Wedge thought, crossing his arms and shuffling his feet. He stood in the back of the crowd, on the fringes, while everyone pressed forward, expectant, almost clinging to one another in their excitement.

 _Luke Skywalker is back_. The crowd almost seemed to say, the concept on all of their lips. Most of them were too young to know him as anything more than a legend. Most of them hadn’t met him. They were all curious, all eager. Of course they were. And all of them would soon see the truth: that Luke was a man, that he was as frustrating as he was earnest, that he was as stubborn as he was compassionate.

He was no different than they were. It was just the scale that was different, the weight of responsibility.

Wedge had to admit: even he couldn’t always grasp the realities of Luke’s life and the burdens he’d had to take on. They’d been together for… more years than Wedge cared to count before Luke severed those ties and Wedge still, _still_ didn’t understand. Sometimes—now—Wedge wished that didn’t make a difference to him. It would have been easy to let the sense of anger, of betrayal, of the petty need to be the most important thing in Luke’s life overwhelm him if not for this.

But it did. It sure as hell did. Wedge was a lifelong soldier; he was a pragmatist. He understood sacrifice and he understood that reality was a flawed, messy place where rocks and hard places would trap you at every turn when they could—and they always, always could.

So Wedge couldn’t hate Luke. He couldn’t even be particularly disappointed.

He sure as hell didn’t have to stick around as a part of the welcoming committee though.

Which was why, while the rest of them pressed forward as the _Millennium Falcon_ slid onto the tarmac, Wedge slipped into the hangar, strode through the empty halls back to the empty command center, hands in pocket, grateful for the solitude.

Luke hadn’t needed him before; he didn’t need Wedge now either, Wedge was certain.

*

“Did you see him?” Connix said, whispering to Goode as they passed one another in the command center, Wedge standing at a nearby console. They were no doubt unaware of Wedge as anything more than the retired commander that he was, a general in all but name—just the way Wedge preferred it—who occasionally, or not so occasionally, consulted with General Organa on strategy, helped Commander Dameron train X-wing pilots, and told stories about the old days if anyone asked, just in case anything he said might be useful to them. Much to their endless amusement. Wedge had gotten good at telling stories over the years. It seemed the least he could do for the people who were no longer there to speak of their experiences for themselves.

“Yes,” Goode replied, the word drawn out in her interest. “He seemed rather sad, didn’t he?”

They didn’t know, of course, why that might be—few people did—but Wedge didn’t find it surprising. With every year that passed, Luke had grown more melancholic, even before Leia’s son fell. Wedge didn’t know the cause and Luke had never said and between the two of them, they’d gotten through it all happy enough to last, content.

Some people just aged into pensiveness. And if anyone had earned that right, it was Luke.

But Connix and Goode wouldn’t know that. And it might’ve been Wedge had been wrong about it, too. It wasn’t like Luke left a note confirming it.

“I wonder what happened between him and the general. I heard—”

“That’s enough of that, Lieutenant,” Wedge said, adopting the carefree, friendly tone that had gotten him through all sorts of unpleasant verbal confrontations with his pilots without alienating anyone. It worked equally well here. “Time to get back to work, yeah?”

Connix flushed and nodded in several sharp bursts. “Of course, sir. My apologies.”

“That’s all right.” He smiled, encouraging, though it was the last thing he wanted to be. “Thank you, Connix.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Connix and Goode parted, returning to their posts, studiously ignoring one another and everyone around them, their faces grown serious.

His effort wouldn’t stem the tide of gossip forever, but doing something was always better than doing nothing.

But someone would probably have to tell Luke he really needed to work on his image.

*

“Are you ever going to see him?” Leia asked. A glass sat on her crossed knee, held in place by her fingers wrapped around its base. It wasn’t often they spent time together like this—for all that they liked one another, there just wasn’t time or much inclination. At the end of the day, one or the other or both of them were just too exhausted to spend any time socializing.

“My luck’s never held out for long,” Wedge answered. “Unless he intends to keep training his new charges in the forest forever, it’s probably only a matter of time.”

Leia smirked, lifting and lowering her eyebrows, calling bullshit on him without ever saying a word. A smug knowing tinged the expression, an answer all its own, too: he wasn’t fooling anyone, let alone her.

He sighed and said, “I know,” because he did and pretending Luke was still acting like a hermit did no one any good. This base could be the biggest in the galaxy and it still wouldn’t be large enough to avoid Luke forever. “But, hey. Obviously he doesn’t want to see me either. It could be worse.”

Leia laughed as though he’d shocked her, barking in surprise at his statement. And maybe it was a little outrageous, but he wasn’t lying exactly—he _did_ experience relief at knowing Luke must be feeling _something_. To think he was having a hard time with this, too, made Wedge feel a little less alone in this at least.

“I never took you for a man who wouldn’t take things head on,” Leia replied.

“We all have our hidden depths.” He sipped his own drink, the liquid burning down his throat as he swallowed.

“It seems foolish to me is all,” she said, shrugging. “You take the initiative, you control the conflict.”

“Are you comparing my relationship with Luke to a _war_?” He frowned and bit his lip and wrinkled his nose. “And why aren’t you telling Luke this?”

“Just speaking from experience,” she said, raising one palm. “The arguments Han and I used to get into could’ve melted Echo Base. I just don’t want an uncontrollable fire on my hands. And I’m still too mad at Luke to criticize his life decisions yet. That might actually end in bloodshed.”

Conceding the point, Wedge tilted his head. “You’re a real friend.”

Leia lifted her glass in recognition. “And don’t you forget it.”

*

Wedge was pretty sure he and Luke weren’t going to _start a fire_ if they saw one another, but it did get him thinking.

And that, as far as he was concerned, was just as bad.

*

Not least of all because thinking seemed to get the universe thinking, too.

*

“Poe, it’s fine,” Wedge said, resisting as best he could as Poe pushed him toward the medbay, his hand between Wedge’s shoulder blades. The hallways were too small to maneuver well in, so Wedge couldn’t even twist away and make a run for it. “If I found a medic every time I—”

“I elbowed you in the eye!” Poe said, shoving him forward.

“I like to think it was my eye that got into your elbow’s way,” he said, dry. Admittedly, it stung a little—Poe’s elbow was hard—but after a few minutes of watering, it would be fine. He should know. It wasn’t the first time he’d been hit in the face. “I shouldn’t have gotten so close to that panel while you were working on it.”

Poe groaned. “Eye injuries are serious,” he said, aggrieved, and more passionate than Wedge had ever seen him about anything outside of flying ships and fighting for the Resistance. “You could lose your sight—”

“Force take me,” Wedge muttered, drawing a withering look his way. “I’m not going blind, Poe.”

“We’ll let Doc Kalonia decide that, yeah?”

As a twinge of annoyance shot up his back, Wedge sidestepped Poe’s touch, hands raised. “Will you stop?” he asked. “You take your job seriously and you care about your people. I get that. I really do, but I’m fine. Also, I’m not in your chain of command. And even if I was, I’d outrank you. I don’t actually have to listen to you.”

Poe frowned, put out by Wedge’s adamance probably. The problem with most pilots was they thought they knew best—and they knew best faster than everyone around them. Wedge himself had never been immune to that. Still didn’t mean he liked—

“Master Luke, I’m fine,” Rey said, voice raised, her pitch tense as she, Finn, and _kriff it all to hell_ , Luke round the corner. “Really.”

Finn hovered at her elbow, hands half-lifted like he didn’t quite know what to do with them. “You’re saying that now, but some of us have some experience with this. Here’s a bit of wisdom: you’re gonna be hurting, and sooner rather than later.”

“It was my fault,” she said. “It was barely a _nick_. I’ll slap a bacta—”

“I don’t think so,” Finn said, serious, before he lifted his head to acknowledge Poe and Wedge hovering in the hallway. “Hi, Poe. Wedge.”

“Hey, kid,” Wedge called back. He very studiously refused to acknowledge Luke’s presence at their back, like a shadow. At least for the moment. “Rey.”

Looked like the Force had taken it out of his hands.

Figured.

He clapped Poe on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go on ahead with them, huh?”

“Uh.” His eyes flicked between Luke and Wedge, a furrow forming between his eyebrows. “Sure. C’mon, Rey. I bet Kalonia’ll just slap a bacta patch on you and send you on your way. Win-win, right?”

Herding the pair of them forward, Poe twisted slightly, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry about the eye, Wedge.”

“My eye forgives you.” Wedge waved him off. “Get out of here, rookie.”

“You call him ‘rookie?’” Luke asked and somehow it felt right that the first words they spoke to one another in six years—six long, long years—would be about someone else.

“Ironic nickname,” Wedge said, shrugging. “Flows better than whippersnapper.”

Luke nodded, looking every inch the sage wizard of a holonovel, tired and weary and ready to give over the fight to the next generation. He wasn’t the Luke Wedge remembered. Luke had never appeared this defeated before, this sad—in every sense of the word. Just like Goode had said.

His gorge rose at the thought that Luke had been living like this for so long and so needlessly. Whatever he was doing… they could’ve done it together. Wedge would have been there every step of the way. Nausea churned his stomach.

How had everything gone so wrong?

“Is Rey all right?” Wedge asked.

“Lightsaber burn.”

Wedge shoved his hands into his pockets. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“So are we just—” _Going to talk like we’re strangers? Pretend this never happened? Ignore one another permanently?_ “—what are we doing here?”

Luke drew in a deep breath, his chest rising, slow and steady and so much more controlled than Wedge feels. Wedge wanted to hate him for that, but he knew better. There was no way Luke was as calm as he looked. No way.

“I don’t know,” Luke answered, raw with honesty. “What do you want to do, Wedge?”

 _I don’t know either. That’s the problem_. A smile, grim, pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Go back in time?” he said, arch.

The smile that Luke cracked in return, broken and rusted from disuse, was like a punch in the gut. “I wish I could,” he admitted.

“Would you have done it differently?”

Luke’s eyes scanned the ceiling before closing briefly as he gathered his thoughts, his hand clapping to the back of his neck. “I don’t know that either. I want to think so.”

Anger sputtered beneath Wedge’s breastbone, tried to spark to life, but if Luke was tired, so was Wedge, and it guttered, leaving Wedge cold. And he just couldn’t demand a better answer from Luke for this, couldn’t push for clarification. It was an honest answer, a hard answer. It wasn’t what Wedge wanted to hear. Wedge could respect that.

 _Maybe Leia was wrong. The way things are going now, she might have to worry about this place turning into Echo Base, all frozen over with ice_.

 _No. We can’t keep doing this_.

“Luke,” Wedge said finally, choosing honesty, too, “I’ve missed you a whole hell of a lot.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Wedge,” Luke said, the first hint of warmth entering his voice, the first hint of a genuine smile.

It resolved nothing, the admission not yet, but Wedge saw a path forward. And he wasn’t too scared to take it. Not this time.

“Hey, Luke?” he asked, a nervous flutter propelling itself against the walls of his abdomen, unable to squirm much further than that. “Have dinner with me.”

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.


End file.
